


the princess and the prisoner

by betony



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-21 23:30:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boy locked in the workshop was the one who told her about the boy locked in the labyrinth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the princess and the prisoner

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emilyenrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilyenrose/gifts).



> I loved the idea of Ariadne + Icarus interactions during their time in Crete. I'm sorry I couldn't work in more of your prompt, but I hope you enjoy this nonetheless!

The boy locked in the workshop was the one who told her about the boy locked in the labyrinth. 

Ariadne had no doubt that he had meant it to be cruel. They had come down to visit Daedulus, the princesses of Crete, to see if the dancing dolls he had promised them when he'd been last brought to their father's hall were ready yet. Daedulus was not there, however, having been escorted by his guard down to the great tunnels of Crete to install another of his mechanisms. This his son told them stiffly, and equally grudging was his invitation that they sit and wait until the master inventor returned. 

She would have slapped the boy for his insolence, but little Phaedra’s eyes lit with glee at the thought of exploring Daedulus’s wonders further. Ariadne indulged her, as she did in all other things, and settled down on a bench as Phaedra poked her small hands into the piles of trinkets. 

The boy slouched down beside her, to her horror, and Ariadne did her best to ignore him. It was not difficult; he was slight and pallid, utterly unlike the sun-bronzed tributes who practiced in the courtyard. She would have gone on in silence if Phaedra had not grasped for a small bronze figure and squealed, “Sister, look, Daedulus has built us a toy Minotaur!” 

The inventor’s son laughed at that, and it was an ugly sound. “I might have known,” he said, “that the sisters of monsters would find such delight in a thing.” 

Ariadne stepped to her feet, reaching for Phaedra impulsively. “What do you mean?” 

The boy looked at her as though he thought she must be joking and then said. “Oh, I see. They’ve lied to you.” 

“The Minotaur is the guardian of our islands,” Ariadne corrected through stiff lips, distracted by Phaedra’s whimpers at her side. “Even the Athenians send tributes to judge their worth at his hands.” 

“He’s your half-brother,” said the boy. “Your mother's child. Misshaped at birth and almost abandoned by your father. I know. Your mother brought him to this tower to beg my father to build a prison where Minos would let her son live his days out. Think on that, Princess. The same blood flows through your veins. It could just as easily have been you.” 

She didn’t bother to dignify that with a response. Instead she picked Phaedra into her arms and carried her down the tower stairs, and as punishment for upsetting her baby sister, she left orders behind her to the guards that the prisoners were not to be fed for three days. 

* * *

“Phaedra has had nightmares,” she told him when she returned the next week. In circumstances like this, it was always best to invoke Phaedra; no one could not love her. “She wakes screaming every night because of what you said.” 

The boy shrugged. Nothing—not even all those days without a morsel of food—seemed to have made much of a difference to him. Instead he kept on working at the mechanisms his father had set him to complete without so much as acknowledging her presence. 

Daedulus looked up, a twitch starting in the corner of his eye. “Has my son displeased you, Princess Ariadne?” he offered, almost fatuously. “I beg your pardon for it.” 

“It wasn’t me he displeased most,” replied Ariadne, thinking of Phaedra’s continued hysterics.The inventor looked away from her gaze, and she was reminded—forcibly—of the fact despite his brilliance, this man owed every new breath to her father’s mercy, and by proxy, to hers. He would never muster up the courage to defy her. 

The thought satisfied her less than she might have expected. “Was it true, Lord Daedulus? Was the Minotaur really born of my own mother?” 

She was not sure if she was asking the man who could not lie to her, or the boy who would not, but: 

“Of course it is,” the boy replied at last. “The whole countryside knows of it. Not that fool’s story they must have told you, about him emerging from the sea, a gift from the gods to watch over Crete. Or even that other story, the one that’s far more rude—“ 

“Icarus!” his father boomed. “Hold your tongue or lose it.” 

The boy—Icarus—met her gaze squarely. “It’s true, though. See, even Father doesn’t deny it.” 

Ariadne considered this for a moment. “I want to meet him,” she said. 

“Absolutely not,” snapped Daedulus at once. “It is out of the question.” 

Icarus said nothing, only smiled. 

* * *

After her hands found the last stretch of thread, after she turned the last corner of the maze, after she locked the door to the labyrinth firmly behind her, Ariadne stopped by the inventors’ tower one last time. She was not sure why. Phaedra was still awake in their bedchamber, even though it was closer to morning, waiting for Ariadne’s report on what the Minotaur looked like, what he did, if he really was their brother. 

Likely that was why she lingered. If nothing else, she wanted Phaedra kept well away from the truth of what lived in the labyrinth. 

“Thank you for the thread,” she said, when the inventor’s son came to meet her. “I would have been lost without it.” 

He ignored her flattery and instead walked to the tower window, where he had apparently been waiting for—something. 

Ariadne followed him. “I saw it—him. My brother. You were telling the truth.” 

Icarus did not reply, so she went on. She told him how the Minotaur had not recognized her, how he seemed incapable of speech beyond a few howls. But this much she had seen, when she peeked around a corner at his slumbering form: on his forearm, he wore the wristband of a Prince of Crete. On his body, he wore nothing more than rags, still splattered with blood. 

“He’s gone mad down there in the dark, hasn’t he? He’ll never find any of the tributes worthy; he attacks them instead. Father meant it to be a punishment for the Athenians instead of a challenge. He murders them, one by one, and he punishes my brother for existing.” Ariadne looked away. "Death would be the only true kindness." 

Icarus snorted. "Are you sure your brother would agree with that? Or is it just that you want to cut him out of your life so you can forget about him?" 

There was nothing she could say to that, all the more because she feared it was true. How smug he was, the inventor's son! Did he think that just because he was right, she wouldn't take out her fear and rage on him? Well, more fool him. She hated him. She hated everything. She told him this. 

“My father killed a young man once,” was all Icarus said in reply. “My cousin. He was as old as I am now, and I was the same age as Phaedra. My father killed Perdix because he envied his skill, and it was in fleeing those charges that we came to be trapped here in Crete. If the gods wanted to seek fitting punishment for my father's actions, I’d rot in this tower for all my years.” 

That stung. “Are you saying I’m just as bound by _my_ father’s crimes? Or my brother's?” 

“No more so than I am,” said Icarus, and smiled to see the dawn. “We had nothing to do with either of our parents’ mistakes, and I refuse to seal my fate with them. I’ll be free of here before you know it." 

"How marvelous for you." 

"No one said you couldn't do the same, Princess." 

"I couldn't! Where would I go—" Ariadne broke off with a guilty start, thinking suddenly of the Athenians at practice in the yard. She couldn't let them all die in vain, not when she could exchange their freedom for one of them setting her brother free from his torment. They might set him free on a lonely island on their way back home, to spend the rest of his days in peace and silence with the occasional sheep. Why, the Athenians might even take her with them to see Samos and Naxos and the rest of the world, particularly that tall young one who always seemed to be watching her.... 

Icarus chuckled, and she wondered if he could guess the direction her thoughts had taken. "That's the spirit. If you’re very lucky, Princess, perhaps I’ll come visit you someday.” 

“Perhaps,” replied Ariadne as she turned to go, skein of golden thread still twisted around her fingers. “Perhaps I might even welcome such a thing.” 

She left him looking up at the rising sun as though he longed for it. 


End file.
